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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30013353">Waiting on War</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunAO3/pseuds/FunAO3'>FunAO3</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, implied PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:34:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,351</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30013353</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunAO3/pseuds/FunAO3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Frieza's defeat, the world stood still... so why was Son Goku still so restless?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chi-Chi &amp; Son Goku (Dragon Ball), Chi-Chi/Son Goku (Dragon Ball), gochi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Waiting on War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Wrote this while thinking of my partner and all she puts up with.</p><p>Love you, nerd.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The days after Frieza’s ultimate defeat left the planet Earth beneath the thumb of a simple, idle safety. With no looming threats on the horizon, birds skittered through the cliffs of Mount Paozu like stars in the night, crashing through the dark sky and crooning their morningsong to those blessed enough to hear it in the wee hours of the morning. Goku heard them more often than not; even with Frieza gone, he was still an early riser, and the neatness of all of life’s loose ends didn’t leave him any less restless.</p><p>He’d always been an early riser.</p><p>Days spent doing kata with Grandpa Gohan didn’t fade easy, and his marriage didn’t leave him any less keen to escape the confines of his sheets in the middle of the night. Chi-Chi, if anything, was a positive influence on that. She crawled out of bed only a few minutes after he did every morning, joined him in the yard, and worked with him until it was time for Gohan to start his studies.</p><p>She was a rock, and now that Goku was back for good, it was so easy for him to remember how much he’d missed her in the year he’d been gone. He was glad she hadn’t been with him, but… sometimes, selfishly, he wished she could’ve been.</p><p>Chi-Chi was always left to do the hard things.</p><p>Goku couldn’t help their son with his studies. He couldn’t cook like she could, be stern like she could, or glare the fur off a hungry wolf like she could. Chi-Chi was good at all the things he was and then some — it felt, sometimes, like her talents were endless. He loved the way she sang to herself in the late hours, he loved the way she teased him about getting a “dad gut,” and he loved the look on her face every time she caught him sneaking Gohan out of his room to go train.</p><p>She was so passionate and caring that, looking back at the early days of their relationship, it was hard to see how he hadn’t noticed any of that before. It was like every one of her good qualities smacked him in the face at once, one day. To be fair, she’d literally hit him in the face more than a few times, but he liked that too. They were no stranger to sparring every once in a while, and more than once she’d thrown him into the grass with a proud huff. They did that some mornings and he loved seeing the look on her face as she wiped her hands clean of his sweat.</p><p>Other mornings were less happy, but no less important.</p><p>Sometimes, he woke up with death on his heels. A clutching feeling struck his chest like ice, a stark contrast to the warm sweat pouring down his forehead and the heat flush under his cheeks. Hidden behind his eyes were visions of the past — drills boring through his gut, a beam through his best friend’s chest, the boom of distant explosions… and the damning din of doom yet to come.</p><p>On those mornings, his heart always threatened to thunder out of his chest. It beat like a snare. It pounded in his ears. Fear and adrenaline pealed through him like a rumble through the sky.</p><p>And then there was Chi-Chi, whose sleepy hands tugged him close and whose ink-hair spilled across their pillowcases. </p><p>Her touch stilled him.</p><p>In the dim light of the morning, she found him when he needed her most, her head a buffet against the wall of his chest and her brow furrowed in her sleep. She looked so angry, even when she didn’t know he could see; it was like she was getting ready to scold him back to bed in her dreams, or maybe fight off some legendary foe that she’d conquered before he really knew her. He thought about what her life must have been like before him, some nights.</p><p>How her journey may have been just as robust and difficult as his own. What her stakes may have been, how hard she must have worked just to find him. How she loved him day in and day out, despite his flaws.</p><p>Goku smiled at the thought, and held her for a few minutes more before he clambered out of bed. He snuck across the bedroom floor, careful not to step on the one, creaky floorboard that he almost always croaked across — and sauntered toward the kitchen in a daze. He put his hands on the countertop and waited with his eyes on the bay window across from it. Outside, stars hung in the sky like rips of scrap paper, twinkling so far off that he could almost forget how up-close he’d seen some of them.</p><p>Chi-Chi followed him out of bed before he knew it, joining him in the morning with a heavy yawn.</p><p>“Goku?”</p><p>“Hey,” he smiled, his back to the wall and his butt on the countertop. She hated it when he sat on the counter, but she didn’t say anything about it. “Sorry I woke ya up, Chi-Chi.”</p><p>Chi-Chi watched him for a moment.</p><p>“It’s okay, hon,” she managed. “Are you alright? You look all tense.”</p><p>“I’ll be okay.”</p><p>There was a brief pause while they both figured out what to say. He wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. Instead, he let her do that for him. She was so much more in tune with him than he even knew how to understand.</p><p>“Did you have a nightmare?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“About what happened in space?”</p><p>Goku glanced down at his hand. He took himself by the wrist, clenched five fingers into a loose fist, and then relaxed it. Energy flowed through him like magma through a vein in the earth, and then vanished without a trace just as quick as it came.</p><p>“It happens sometimes. It all worked out this time, but… aw, I don’t know, Chi-Chi, I’m not sure if I’m doing any of this right. I don’t wanna put Gohan through any of that stuff again, and I was gone so long, I…”</p><p>Her brow wrinkled.</p><p>They were alone, that early. Gohan was asleep in bed. Goku, clad in a black shirt and his trademark orange pants, and his sleepwear wife were the only ones who could deal with the thoughts burgeoning in the back of his mind at night. Part of him felt strangely guilty. He was supposed to be the unburdened one.</p><p>Chi-Chi did all the worrying for both of them. She was the one who dragged him and Gohan by the ear to every school interview and every possible family function to make sure the community didn’t forget about them. She was the one who (somehow) did their taxes. She was the one who did all the cooking and the cleaning. She did so much for all of them that it was incredible. </p><p>“No, it’s okay,” she soothed, marching sternly between his legs. “You keep going, Goku. You fight all those… weird space monsters or whatever. It’s normal for you to have a nightmare or two. But get off of my counter. You’re not going to vent on an empty stomach.”</p><p>“Chi…”</p><p>I said <em> down</em>, mister.”</p><p>Goku couldn’t help but to laugh as his wife, all of five feet and four inches tall, lifted him off of the counter like he was a newborn and dropped him on the floor like a glass plate. It didn’t hurt, but it still somehow knocked the breath clean out of him. She was always so full of surprises. Chi-Chi didn’t skip a beat, barely pausing for air in the time it took her to put her hair up into a messy bun with a hair-tie he hadn’t even seen her holding.</p><p>“Now, go on. Take a seat and tell me all about it. I don’t wanna hear anything less than the whole story. What were you dreaming about? Was it that Freezer guy?”</p><p>God, he loved his wife.</p><p>“He sounded like an ass… I knew he’d be trouble.”</p><p>So much.</p>
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